these take notice and try to address them before this move forward but thank you all very much for being here. we are adjourned. >> thank you. ..

kathleen frydl is next on booktv. she reports contrary to common perception the war on drugs did not begin with president nixon's pronouncement in 1971 but was the further development of preexisting initiatives. it's about an hour. [applause] >> thank you. thank you michelle. i want to begin by thanking michelle sellers and the staff of the washingtonian especially. i want to thank maurice johnson who is not here and william branch who i hope is here.

everybody has an explanation for why we have a drug war. some agree with the reasoning that the government offers everyday in multiple ways. we have a drug war because of drug use. neither i nor an ace and -- will argue that the drug war and cursor is substantial numbers of teetotalers with no involvement in the drug trade. obviously the drug war is in some way tied to drug use. but one pair of eyes to see their tremendous discrepancies between who is in jail and who is feeling the brunt of the drug war versus the numbers and diversity of those engaged in illicit drug use. if white suburban teenagers snorting cocaine filled our jails the government explanation would be in credibility. we are in fact attempting to

explain this discrepancy. if we find the government's explanation to be woefully incomplete than the story of how and why the drug war came about would restore what is missing. in my book i argue that the drug wars particular shape, its scope and its function resulted from certain dilemmas of governance in an age of fast expanding state power. this story is impossible to tell without the district of columbia. tonight i will focus largely on the one-way street, that is the imposition that the federal government made on washington d.c. but i want to make it clear that in reality and of my book there is much more pushback and activism within the city. even at its most politically impotent stage residence challenge the federal government's plans for it by failing to comply by insisting on home rule and by offering a different account or explanation of events than the governor's --

government's version. i will focus on the way the government used the district to craft the drug war. most scholars lead looked at this issue emphasize two things. first the classification of certain drugs as narcotics heroin and morphine cocaine and later marijuana. in second their removal from general circulation all of which took place in the early part of the 20th century and was deeply tied to the reputation these drugs had acquired have acquired for recreational use among racial minorities. in my own work i try to emphasize the many steps between these events and the regime of punishment and prohibition in the early 1970s that provides the legislatures and institutional basis for the modern drug war. it's important to look at the center of a time because to say something cannot -- freely is not the same to say as it's

prohibited. post-world war i in 1970 these drugs were used as medicines and various countries have different regulatory approaches to handle them. in the united states the harrison narcotic act of 1914 use tariffs and taxes to track and regulate opiate productioproductio n and importation and dispensation down to the fraction of the graham. after international controls are put in place in the 1930s illicit users were supplied not only by diversion from illicit channels of drug production but also from similar the clandestine production and sale of drugs in known violation of the law. as the heroin market went underground the u.s. government chased it with a figure and moralizing spirit embodied in the country's first commissioner of the u.s. are convicts bureau. a fixture in republican circles and sling it was known for a scolding tirades and

sensationalized fictions of illicit drug traffic and use. over the course of the his service from 1930 to 1961 the commissioner nominated stereotypes depending on the setting and the situation as narcotics traffic designating asian and african-american latino or italian ethnics as the guiding force behind the narcotics conspiracy. echoing other witchhunts popular in his day anslinger's script was familiar but his targets change over time. before world war i the commissioner spent much of his time and energy facing off against doctors challenging their professional authority and integrity in an attempt to stymie the flow of narcotics diverted from their offices. after the war anslinger continue to send its agents to check up on medical narcotic descriptions throughout the 1950s but a bureaucratic review found he devoted only 20% of his manpower to doing so.

the rest pursued illicit deals supplied through subversiosubversio n. as he turned his attention and resources to the underground market anslinger clamored for more severe penalties for the possession of opiates without the appropriate tax stamp. members of congress especially members of the powerful southern delegation were quick to oblige but only on the assurance of certain kinds of drug deals with the subject to anslinger's aggressive tactics and not others. thus began a collaborative relationship between a bureau of narcotics in congress that was intended to construct in hands but also to delimit the boundaries of the nation's drug war. southerners who were well aware of their own local problems with narcotic diversion received assurances from anslinger that in fact illicit use was limited to the major cities but little of it in small cities in rural rural areas. as the commissioner maps the geography of his intentions the district became a special focus of his efforts.

in my book i pay special attention to washington d.c. because i'm obliged to. throughout the 20th century the u.s. congress tested the tactics of the drug war in d.c. drafting legislation, shaping the evolution and invoking the racially charged specter of drug induced criminality in the city to help justify the modern drug war. more than anything else this was a consequence of the districts lack of political autonomy. the constitution of the united states grants the congress exclusive jurisdiction over washington and for most of its history the city has had little say in the conduct of its business. between 181964 d.c. residents could not invoke the president. since reconstruction dca was governed by a board of commissioners appointed by the president who served in coordination with the congressional committee from each chamber assigned to oversee district affairs. as a result what would place was

a state crime was in d.c. a federal offense. felony cases were heard before a federal court and were prosecuted by u.s. attorney appointed to the district. deprived of basic electoral rights district residents lived according to laws that they had no ability to make or to change. d.c.'s powerlessness took on greater significance in the city became among the first in the northeast corridor to approach a geordie status by the late 1950s. 1950s. seven congressman made a concerted effort to the fix these changes offering a view of the district is under siege by criminals who went unchallenged as the forces supporting segregation and social controls lax. because of this and other similar remarks many scholars of the drug were assumed the link between prohibition and punishment and race was discursive. quoted in the law and order rhetoric designed to appeal to white ethnics who could be enticed from the democratic

fold. although fallow this argument never be collected the obvious and that is that the link between the drug war in race was explicit even mechanical and it was initially forged in a symbiotic fashion between congressional committees devoted to oversight of the district of columbia and those dedicated to the regulation of narcotics. the first and most significant example of the special relationship with was the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing in the 1950s. one was first proposed the idea was to start -- startling departure from common practice through mandatory minimum's ran contrary to common law and that celebrated tradition and traditional economy. in the place of judicial discretion james davis the subcommittee chairman from georgia proposed in 1953 that mandatory minimum sentences be attached to a series of offenses that would require a presiding judge to give a predetermined sentence no matter what the judge happened to think.

davis drew heavily on his views of the district to justify the move. we have reached the point where it's risky for women and girls to be on the streets after dusk congressman davis concluded at a time when d.c.'s crime rate was one of the lowest of any major city in the country. despite the crime panic some congressman voiced reservations and urged caution. pennsylvania democrat herman eberhard or the most outspoken critic of the bill pointed out congress is proposing something to the residence of the district of columbia that is not required in any state of the union adding we are attempting in fact to use the district of columbia as a guinea pig on which to tryout a radical departure of rentals but his colleagues were undeterred by the proposal mostly because they did not care. because d.c. had no power no representation in congress there was no possibility of a backlash and there was no account given to the desires of residents who lived in the city.

only weeks after the bill passed the house the same chamber found considering mandatory minimums once again this time to apply to a second conviction for narcotics possession without the appropriate tax stamp. if any legislator had reservations over a broader application of untested proposals that supporters were there to remind them. and the case or should any doubt as to the position of those who oppose the bill 1 congressman tried to critics i asked the house to jog its memory and remember the position taken by some when the district of columbia bill was before this body not long ago dealing with the question of mandatory sentences. the bill passed easily in both houses. in this way the district function to lower the threshold of consent when he came to the tactics and tools of the drug war. innovations impose upon it supplied a president won the congressman were quick to establish, site and repurposed

at their convenience. the district also serve to suggest targets to in counternarcotic efforts but the drug supplied by subversion were by no means alone in their behavior. this point was a surprising addendum to the first high-profile application that mandatory minimums in the district gave are the 1954 prosecution of catfish turner and his associates all of whom were african-american. three of turner's co-conspirators had no prior convictions. as a result they were now subject to mandatory minimum sentences. with an impressive courtroom victory for two u.s. attorneys who prosecuted the case might have rested on their laurels. instead they earn doubts regarding the ultimate benefits of their labor. as it turns out the script consisted primarily of u.s. attorney ladin told the post but he added the narcotic trafficking is no racial or geographic boundaries. we have found addiction and peddling among various routes in

many parts of washington. by 1970 the federal government stood poised to knit various drug laws and one regime and affect criminal prohibition of narcotics under the powers granted under the commerce clause. president nixon was particularly keen to put law and order issues at the center have his agenda. in making the district the special focus of his attention he and his allies accounted new leaders of the city embarked on a path toward self-governance. still, familiar pattern emerged. the ability of police to enter premises without warning if they believed issuing one would result in the destruction of evidence was according to d.c. police are necessary for the district. yet officials in the nixon administration insisted on putting it in the anti-crime legislation of 1970. months later the same authority appeared in nixon's overhaul of the country's drug regime, the controlled substances act of

1970. the legislative foundation of the modern drug war. as a prove somewhat controversial proponents were quick to cite the presidents in the district go. though. congressman springer dismissed opposition to know not by reminding his colleagues that they had consented to it. we had it in addition to the columbia crime bill. we voted for it then. d.c. served as more than a legislative proving grounds for the modern drug war. the cities of evolution and the culture and practices of the modern police state was emblematic and in many ways distracted. as commissioner anslinger ratcheted up the -- for illicit narcotics powerful forces change the metropolitan police department from an agency which largely ignored poor black neighborhoods to an agency which largely defined its policing mission through narcotics enforcement in those very same places. i argue this transformation enable police to retain vestiges of traditional law enforcement

via discretion, use of force or even corruption. while in the midst of profound changes wrought at the professionalization movement within law enforcement and civil rights outside of it. as police redefines their precedence and the ghetto drug enforcement became both their preoccupation and their methodology not just something to police but a way to police. initially the fact that law enforcement did not bother to offer services in poor black neighborhoods for something was something that was both widely known and widely ignored. in 1947 "the washington post" reported results of an investigation that showed police pocketing crimes to be prevalent throughout the metropolitan police metropolitan police department. pocketing meant that there are to report crime in an official tally and this internment no effort was made toward solving it. the post revealed in a calendar year already more than 300 robbery complaints have been placed in secret files and the

detective bureau and an additional 300 others recorded in police recent record books were marked hold. the d.c. commissioner charged with overseeing its john russell young officially condone the practice noting that his apathy regarding black-on-black crime in impoverished neighborhoods was shared by the public and most of the press. police superintendent robert naret refused to disavow pocketing before this and hearing held in response to the newspapers report. instead adding that digital files have been used since 1941 and prior to that other methods were used. his statement could be made without any elaboration suggests that his audience understood him well. what are it meant was before 1941 the police employed other methods to deny black residents of police services. police operations remain largely untouched after the posts expoée of pocketing. the story may well have raised skepticism regarding chief

eric's leadership that commissioner young's oversight since neither of them seemed particularly exercise that the npd describe half the crime reported to it but they remained in office. also untouched was the mpd relies upon tools of social control mainly the hundreds upon hundreds of arrests of african-americans made each year and under the city's disorderly statutes especially those made when an officer ordered a civilian to move on and if he did not do so at the pacer in the fashion in which the officer desired he was subject to arrest. these discretionary tools empower the police to such a degree that in some neighborhoods officers caressed whom they wanted when they wanted. only a few years later in 1952 the mpd came under scrutiny once again this time as a result of coinciding senate department of justice investigations. both focused on narcotics enforcement and senate investigators quickly narrowed their fork focus to hh carper

head of the narcotics squad. on march 17 the day of carper's appearance before the senate finally arrived notwithstanding the distracting reports and lieutenants ill health in recent hospitalization. two local television stations carry the program live in radio stations agreed to rebroadcast the interview in prime-time evening hours. as with the legendary hearings on organized crime and air of anticipation buzzed around the room. senators confront confronted carper with his own financial records and asked them to explain in more than $4000 in deposits to one of his checking account. carper claim that he could not recollect making them. senator neeley remarked he found such a lapse in memory to be highly suspicious and said lieutenent i'm going to probably break the injunction of secrecy but i think i should tell you that this committee will hear evidence of payment after payment of cash that was made to

you by dope peddlers for protection. this astonishing accusation shock some viewers but not others. for many black d.c. residents the remarkable thing about the carper testimony was not police corruption but the willingness to discuss it publicly. one african-american lawyer interviewed with fellow residents admitted that the hearings were brought to light were a large segment of the population known all along. senator nealy's charges against carper were vindicated the next day when dope peddler james roberts appeared before senators. the calm demeanor and saturn i space presented the public with the picture of a lawful if not rip morsel man as he told the story of dealing illicit drugs in his interactions with d.c.'s narcotic squads at that time. from. from 1947 to 1949 the tara carper received 18,000 to

$20,000 in payoffs from roberts in small bills and always paid on the first of the month often by wrapping cash in a newspaper and dropping it in a squad car. though these revelations prompted personal changes at the top little about policing in the district changed during subsequent years even as long for some itself underwent a professionalization movement that demanded more training from recruits, new performance measures for officers and new methods of your credit oversight. a decade later president lyndon johnson was still smarting from criticisms he received from republican challenger eric goldwater that johnson had left the district descent into a chaos of crime. despite his triumphant election for president was keen to appoint a special committee on crime in the district of columbia in july of 1965. the task force spent a good part of its time assessing the work of the d.c. metropolitan police department and it concluded his

announces with a stark admonition. no one in the district of columbia should underestimate the goals of his experience and misunderstand it which separates police from poor black citizens. to form the base of its police recommendations the commission recruited the international association of chiefs of police to recommend structural changes and the professional association was by now well accustomed to its role as experts consulted to speed the transition to a more professional police culture. organizational trend that most out of the isi p. when it looked at d.c. police was the fact that it had one of the highest resignation rates in the city, excuse me in the country. the reasons for this police access became a subject of contentious debates as well as a rorschach test of police relations in the city. for its part they focused on those internal failures that would foster this content. the building was sold and its

equipment inadequate its patrol cars and equated. even uniforms varied in shape and were haphazardly one. officers even had to purchase handcuffs at their own expense. while the presence commission took the findings to heart it also made remarks independent of that. for a city that was now mostly black d.c. is mostly white police force struck the commission is an anachronistic at best and antagonistic at worst. frequent instances of arrest the commission reported many unjustified had been issued under the failure to move on position of the disorderly conduct statute and these stoked resentment and expanding black neighborhoods. moreover the commission noted that the majority of complaints regarding the force filed with the word found some type of transgression. aggressive and unjustified use of force whether it was arrest physical brutality or oath led

black residents in impoverished areas to view police in the words of the commission not as protectors but as part of and social order. there's a psychological setting to be her retell it is one d.c. activist observed a charged atmosphere that meant even routine interactions could escalate into a standoff between police and local residents. the commission concluded that it was common sense and perhaps even necessary to preserve peace to hire and promote more african-americans to the npd. congressional response to the presence commission findings was quick and emphatic, not content to rely on the isip congress implied its own expert analyst maliki harney assistant to harry anslinger and perhaps his most trusted lieutenant. through the figure of harney the bureau's racialized use of a particular brand of moral panic was projected on the district of columbia a wealth and

illuminating lens charging district of affairs in the congress including basil widmer of of the north carolina commerce and placed in charge of the special subcommittee on the metropolitan police department. in hearings held by widmer to review the commissioners report harney dismissed their efforts as a contribution from outsiders of varying expertise. disagreeing with the commission carney insisted it was not the answer. for such efforts amounted to little more than speculation and numbers are playing with color. for harney morale was low because washington streets were crawling with felons. for this reason the committee should watch closely attempts made to week -- positions pay sometimes application can be abrasive harney admitted that the alternative to nonenforcement may well be a curfew on every block. this depiction of the district's

teetering on the precipice of chaos sustained seven congressman and their view that nothing had changed in the metropolitan police department. presiding numbers in the congressional committee found no basis for nor did it see any probability of expectation that police wereization can bring about any substantial improvement to d.c.. indeed reforms were regarded as an effort to soften the department's approach to law enforcement and even criminals in the words of maliki harney bandwidth of justice. some members of congress objected characterizing harney's defensiveness and encourage the unfortunate feelings of isolation and fear that haunted the npd. congressman adams pointed out that the reforms suggested by the commission for akin to efforts elsewhere. all part and parcel of a recognizable drive to bring down the time and modernize these departments in less than 25 years as he put it. through the use of money and

techniques he said this was precisely what we are trying to do in d.c.. the congressman went on to make a crucial observation or the courts in d.c. were overcrowded and the judicial system was literally at the point where it is turning out from the overload. instead congress endorsed the contention that d.c. police command including its new chief john layton that the department's methods were fine. this is not a real estate problem widmer responded. it was the streets of d.c. that were the problem. the officer brought in to clean up the corrupt narcotics movement in the early 1950s have subsequently gone on to lead the department's internal investigation unit widely viewed as beyond reproach layton was a comfortable choice in defense that will not corrupt himself did not turn the department upside down setting out corruption either. when lyndon johnson heard that the d.c. commissioner selected layton to run the npd days after

the president's 1964 triumph he was irate. late in seem content to run the department as his predecessor dennin johnson who at clear ambition to reform and excerpt more authority over the npd finally was ordered to circumvent the new chief. in 1967 johnson appointed walter washington ,-com,-com ma the last presidential appointment to the d.c. commission in the first one to these designated mayor commissioner and later under home rule the city's first elected mayor. upon appointment as mayor commissioner washington brought in patrick murphy form a chief of police of syracuse new york is director of public safety. murphy launched an drive to higher -- and implemented the various recommendations of johnson's crime commission. in 1968 europe yesterday the leadership changed selecting a technocrat with regressive leanings jerry wilson to replace layton as mpd police chief. with or without the help of

congress johnson showed determination in his efforts to professionalize d.c.'s police force. the resulting drive to recruit more blacks to npd and of course the fact that african-americans would realize the pool for the agency converged to produce a number of tragic episodes that initially only serve to emphasize the racism that pervaded the department. a good number of african-americans to join the npd before the commissions report either quit the force are retired early as a result of frustrations encountered on the job. one such retired officer charles dickson was ordered to move along by two white officers who went dissatisfied with the district response arrested and beat him. such incidents of harassment of former are off-duty police officers galvanized the force. as washington police columnist william raspberry reported in 1966 black officers once shrugged off such abuse but now that it is happening to other

officers they want action. african-american cops working undercover felt particularly aggrieved. frequently mistaken for streetcorner men they worked in great danger. one was shot and killed by uniformed police officer and 68. the mpd adopted the practice of rotating a universal cab that all undercover cops would wear on the street to alert other police other covert identity. these tragic encounters have to make manifest the necessity of change in the organization and culture of the npd. seven has had delayed this transformation but they could not halted. bit by bit activists and courts effected change trade in 1968 eight the d.c. circuit court declared the city's vagrancy violations unconstitutional a vague. hence arose under that charge dropped off precipitously so much so that the 1972 they were virtually nonexistent according to police reports.

in the summer of 1968 the npd issued a clarification on its police rules on arrest under the guidance of the department of justice. this particular operation modified the criteria for disorder arrests stating explicitly that the mere refusal to move on at the order of a police officer was not sufficient to constitute a breach of peace. so there would be no confusion the next day the mpd decided that disorder arrest should be subject to a pretrial hearing essentially bureaucratic review meant to discourage officers from relying on disorder arrest except in specific instances like a riot. by the early 1970s the one standard tools of policing in the district favored disorder and statues were all but extinct. police officers had traditionally is both to arrest public drunkenness. lyndon johnson's crime commission in 1965 the npd arrest for public drunkenness totaled more than three times the number per-capita than any

city of significant size. this rigorous arrest policy was forsaken for several reasons not least because the u.s. court of appeals ruling in 1966 which held that a person could not be arrested for public drunkenness if he was an alcoholic sense inebriation was the result of a disease and not a voluntary act of a person in possession of his faculties. combined with the controversy over vagrancy and disorder arrest the npd was disbanded when from an enforcement agency that made thousands upon thousands of arrests for drunkenness to one that made hardly any at all. during the same time arrests for illicit possession of narcotics surged. before 1960 the department of corrections sentence an average of 50 heroin addicts to jail per year. this number grew at a gradual pace such that by 1966 the figure was 150 annually. however his drug war historian

clarence lusane points helmed by 1969 only three years later the average had gone to 1400. likewise and they were in 1969 heroin addicts comprise 15% of the city's jail population. by august at x. were 45%. arrest could be made for possession or distribution but thanks to congressional augmentataugmentat ion of the federal code arrest could be made against anyone deemed to be in the vicinity or same residence as drug addicts. by the early 1970s it was clear that the federal drug laws use discretion had once been afforded to them by the now discarded statutes. for the npd the transition to the drug enforcement regime was a halting one. narcotic arrests had long been the exclusive province of the narcotics squad. throughout most of the 1960s the npd assigned only 21 men to the squad and unimpressive force that was further augmented in 1969 to 31. as a rule patrol officers were

expected to refer drug cases to the narcotics squad something that they rarely did if only to spare themselves a nuisance. over time like other urban police departments and bt came under pressure to train more of its patrol offers to identify illicit drugs and make street arrest. when maryland senator joseph tidings surveyed the districts narcotics problems in 1970 he learned from the district police chief jerry wilson that both patrol units in the narcotics squad and increase the number of their drug arrests and in addition more and more officers have completed training with the bureau of narcotics and dangerous drugs later renamed the drug enforcement agencies so that they would read better equipped to enforce illicit drug laws. washington d.c. chief wilson joined other big-city police chiefs and signing a pact in 1970s that formalize the division of labor. the bureau would concentrate on international trafficking and interstate violators and the npd or any other local police force

would address local dealers. another source of pressure on the npd towards more robust drug enforcement approach with a simple but important fact that illicit drugs were widely available on the streets in the district paid washington's chief wilson noted a proportionate and correlated rise in both drug and robbery arrests in the late 1960s as drug use increased users stole more to supply their habit. robberies accounted for 3% of all offenders in 1956. 13% and 69 and 25% in 1973. likewise narcotics violators constituted 3% of offenders in 1966, 6% in 1969 and 10% in 1973. this latter trend was all the more interesting given chief wilson's own estimate the heroin use dropped off sharply after 1969 as he himself suggested the

arrest and subscribe -- reflected upon police enforcement tactics at least as much as it did upon the incidence of drug use. to be sure the transition to narcotics enforcement and its ultimate effects was a complex story that unfolded in a turbulent time. nevertheless it was clear that were as congress have established the principle of severe criminal penalties for illicit narcotics in the 1950s it was only by the end of the 1960s the local law enforcement stood ready to arrest and enforce its statutes to any appreciable degree. despite a surge in drug use across a spectrum of users mainly african-americans who lived in inner-city and consumed heroin supplied through subversion would be subject to law enforcement. narcotic supplied from diversion like her own present-day crisis in oxycodone use or other kinds of illicit drug use like abusive amphetamines or barbiturates presented similar problems but by and large they were not said that to concerted law enforcement or the demographics

of the illicit drug market remain diverse but the targets of counternarcotics efforts did not. once established as an acceptable police tactics drug enforcement altered the operation of criminal justice, dover on them. overflowing jails forced the district hand and by necessity the city set upon the most successful networks of methadone maintenance. despite good results support for the clinics declined precipitously throughout the 1970s. in my walk i argue the reason for this is that treatment offered none of the broader utility to be exercised in state power is in punishment. indeed different components of the modern drug war have resolved certain governing dilemmas whether it be policing the inner-city or justifying u.s. intervention in the developing world and these everyday tasks in the drug war sustained a state project which would otherwise and by every reasonable indicator be defined as a failure. with drugs as a prop d.c. is

often served as the federal government stage. this pattern should trouble every american. i argue in my book that the drug war has been seized upon to it ends other agendas in the state both at home and abroad. this propensity to use the drug war as a means to achieve other and cheat citizens out of an honest tally of modern u.s. power. in this way the district of columbia serve not only as a proving ground for much of the drug war it foreshadowed its governing agent. citizens of the nations capital watched as congressional gamut to advance punishment were foisted upon them without recourse to the ballot box. similarly as a country the united states now supports the workings of international drug war the dimensions and activities of which cannot be fully known or recovered. in some since when it comes to the drug war all americans live in d.c.. as an author it was important to

me to talk in this library which through its great work helps to tell this story and many others. by having this discussion here i believe we are saying something about who we are. and for all that has been lost for the sacrifices and the struggles acknowledged here today and for the great many more that went unmentioned that still shape our lives in our world. i want to say that this is still a community that has the compassion, the courage and an abiding hunger for justice such that it is able to ask the question who do we want to be? when we claim our sovereign rights for voting representation in congress were simultaneously helping to end the grave injustice called the drug war. conversely and by the same logic when we insist on methods other than punishment to deal with substance use and addiction we are reclaiming our rights. dignity and freedom, justice and power, historical redress and

future aspirations. advance together or not at all. i want to thank you for coming this evening. [applause] is there anyone who has any questions? rob. >> when marion barry was arrested, i'm sorry? >> can you stand a little closer to the mic? >> i think it's for television. i don't think it's for the room. when marion barry was arrested on a drug charge, what appeared in the headlines of course is well nonand mostly in terms of the reaction to it of senior

figures. in your work did you come across any indication of how the rank and file of the police department and washington bureaucracy told about the fact that barry was arrested and the possibilities of how that came about? >> it was a set up. we all know that. you know i did it rob because the bookends of 1973 but i would recommend to a great hbo documentary on marion barry which runs through the several lives of marion barry if i can call it that. marion barry does appear in my book as the head of snake for washingtwashingt on d.c. and one of the most vocal critics of the npd during a very important time and that is one life that he had. and then his first term as mayor and the downtown that we see every day now is a credit to his

leadership and his entrepreneurial political spirit and then of course there is the other lives of marion barry the ones we hear about all the time and the ones that are used to deride him. he makes comments himself that expose him to that derision. i thought the documentary that rank-and-file people were just extremely disappointed in him most heartbroken because this is a man who commanded tremendous respect throughout the city and still does and i still have respect for many of the things he has done. that was my own sense of someone else's work. i didn't go that way in my own book. >> two questions. one is the timeframe that you picked and why you chose 4273 in

the second is how did you choose the subject in general? how did you go down the path he he did? >> thank you for both of those questions. it's not a not be his choice for a subject for me. i chose it when i was working on my first book the world war ii g.i. bill and i read an oral history of oscar ewing who is an important official in the german administration. in his previous professional life he had been a lawyer for the pharmaceutical industry here in the united states and i was waiting for records in reading his oral history and he said something which i thought was amazing. he said in the 1930s the united states have the most revered system of narcotics control in the world and i thought to myself well that while that is certainly not the case now. some happen happened in the interim so actually that set up the chronology well for me. what happened in the interim

such that we could coach the league of nations was some swagger and say this is how we do it and now infected the unwary are the object of much derision and well-deserved criticism how did we go from this system to a system that is i think seen worldwide as perpetuating mass injustice. so that set the terms for the chronology for me as well. >> i have a question about your research. how easy was it to do research on this topic? >> well of course it was easy in the washington room. it wasn't easy. the bureau of narcotics records are not -- but they are also not available for research so i had to file file a special access request and i had to do that with the fda records as well. there is an interval of time. there is a lot in the book not just about d.c. but a weird

interval in time with the food and drug administration is in charge of abuse epidemics that involve amphetamines and barbiturates so i have to file special access request for those records as well. once i got over the records it was easier from that point on. the records told the whole story. they really told a story and the narration of the drug wars especially through this time period and to do with the bureau of narcotics had a lot to do prior to me had a lot to do with international schemes that the dash harry anslinger concocted and the supporting nsa. i thought to myself the day-to-day administrative work of the bureau of narcotics and how they depicted addiction and illicit narcotics use has a lot more to say about why we have a drug war today than in any given

conspiracy so i'm just going to go through those kinds of records just thinking that would yield more. once i have the records the administrative records in particular told the story and it was easy for map point on. i ended up joking about a little bit but i worked in the washington room to uncover a lot of the policing story which i told today because "the washington post" covered it and the columnist william raspberry who died as some of you probably know also occasionally covered it but nothing like the consistency of the washington daily which is no longer in print and i could only access up there so that was extremely helpful. >> when you say washington dailies what do you mean? named them. >> i honestly cannot. it's like "washington post" star or something like that.

[inaudible] >> yeah, yeah, yeah. historians use a tool called historical papers on line. i just went through the clippings and found the lots in the washingtonian room that i would not find elsewhere unless somebody else happen to have a relevant collection of clippings like that. [inaudible] >> exactly. >> what kind of challenges did this metropolitan police rank-and-file say there there was capital treatment to professionalize the police force? >> first of all there was a mass exodus to the suburbs and the police department picked up a lot of police for so a lot of

the challenge was based by the rank-and-file by just joining prince georges. i know it sounds familiar, joining prince georges or other surrounding areas and that was another issue. i didn't mention my topic. that was another issue that johnson's commission struggled with. you know, it was an extremely tense time. i tried to be more nuanced in the book. d.c. police felt that when they entered into poor black neighborhoods for the first time to actually offer services and not to pick up a bribe or harass somebody or someone who could -- committed a crime against a white hearse and so when they enter these neighborhoods for the first time they patted themselves on the back as being more progressive than that which

had come before them. and you can see where they are coming from. they are offering police services for the first time but at the same moment they are doing that they are behaving with such discretionary authority and brutality that engenders this response in the local community so it really was a disconnect and you almost get the sense throughout the 1960s, not just the 50s but throughout the 60s that you have two groups of people speaking a different language. they inhabit the same place but they are speaking a different language and the rank-and-file police officers felt what are you complaining about? we are here compared to what had come before we are more progressive so it was difficult for them to reconcile the community's conversation with their own perception. >> the book is very interdisciplinary. i didn't just hear his or her politics. there are lots of other fields of study so what other research do you hope your book will spur

that others would do? >> i hope somebody takes it an even closer look at the district because i do spend time in the district and there is lots of material that i did not speak about today. i think this story merits and even closer inspection. so i mean just for starters within the discipline of history i hope that people take the district much more seriously. there is already great work. a great book called an example for all the land is about washington d.c. during the civil war and reconstruction years and it's not commonly known that he had their own radical reconstruction here in washington d.c. and that radical reconstruction was gradually attacked by other washington d.c. residents such that we kind of presage the fall of reconstruction right here in washington d.c.. that is an example of the kind of look i think people could be

writing about almost every decade of district history. district history is relevant for audits in the region but is relevant for the whole country in terms of how the federal government justifies its power and what kinds of innovations it's trying to impose. so i hope people take district history even more seriously than has been done and of course there is already great work. in other disciplines i guess i'm hoping that across the broad sweep of discipline that currently aren't just in the drug wars, so that would be legal sociological especially, criminology. i'm hoping that people come to me, come with me and lived live in this land of talking about power in the state because i noticed as i talked in this book, people are talking about culture and cultural discourse and addiction and that is all

important and all of those things are in my book. at first and foremost the drug war is a state project. so i want people to have a dialogue with me and my work and other kinds of work across the various disciplines that takes the state seriously. >> following on that he traced the congress heavily southern influence in policy so that would apply to almost anything depending on the balance of power and what is the agenda because this could be read as discrimination in the 60s and pick what you will to be the point of attack which is drugs and he could probably trace that trajectory from one specific period of time depending on the problem that would lead to another but i was interested to know what was the balance of power with representatives in congress in the north? you talked a lot about seven representatives and their policy and their power and imposing

that. see one of the reasons i did that is because we are dealing with an age of democratic power and i mean big d is in political democrats and within that coalition in both houses of congress southerners sustained an incredible leadership streak and the reason for that is they get reelected over and over again so they are able to build their seniority and make a claim. the most serious congressional dealers, almost all of them wilbur mills, all of the people who are part of my story are southerners and they're the most powerful man in congress because they are able to accrue such seniority as they are elected what looks like on paper in landslides but it's really an artifact of widespread voter suppressisuppressi on in the south. that is why southerners are here so consistently and so

consistently important in the story. you know why mention him quickly but senator tidings serves a much longer discussion than what i gave him today. he is from maryland which some people in maryland will remind you portions of the dark dark below the mason-dixon line so he he is from maryland but he is the biggest supporter of the methadone clinics and actually it's an interesting episode in the early 1970s where tidings tries to offer d.c.'s methadone clinics in a sense as a counter to the southern imposition of counternarcotics law enforcement. the kind of battle between north and south if you will but in terms of the district but of course the missing piece in that no matter who it is as the district itself in the districts on representation and its own voice. >> i'm not sure i can ask this

clearly but you make such a very strong point about the district being without self-government at the state level and so all other major cities where there are big drug problems that have evolved in the same period of time do have state governments but your point or one i'm thinking of is that we are the clearest kind of example of the federal power because we don't have the state. but well, to questions. number one, suppose we get state government and suppose we have such a history. we have only had self-government i.e. a mayor since 1974 so we

have such a history of evolving very lamely really in the last or the years so what if we had -- if we got self-government wawate the different but then other cities have had the same problem with state government. how have they done better? >> let me take the second question first. throughout most of the time period of might book, up until 1971 police chiefs sign that packs with the -- the bureau of narcotics the federal pair of narcotics is the name's man on the scene when it comes to narcotics enforcement. very city police departments have narcotics squads in those narcotics squads in some cases outnumber the bureau of narcotics presence in the city which is true for new york. i can't think of another

example. not l.a. at this point, but they are both parties equally corrupt so you are dealing with a very weird and warped atmosphere. also important throughout the enforcement picture also important to the stories the federal government when it re-road it's drug regime so whether was the harrison narcotics act or the controlled substances act it would encourage if not prompt individual states to write their uniform narcotics code in conformance so that is another way in which federal initiatives and federal desires were insinuated into the states and locales. let me take the first question now. i think what it would look like if the city were trying to build right now, we have a city that has legalized medical marijuana. we legalize it in the late 1990s by overwhelming majority but congress basically for 10 years forbade the district of columbia from implementing that

vote and only very recently has that been lifted. internally only recently have we developed a system of predatory framework for medical marijuana dispensaries and i'm on my local, i maam i local medical marijuana dispensaries tweaked feed and if we believe than they are going to open within weeks if not days. so that is one way in which things are changing and then of course many of you know, some members marion barry and councilmember tommy wells recently talked about their desire to introduce legislation to decriminalize marijuana. i think that is what the world would look like if the world that we have been very much trying to build for the past 10 years. i have talked about it and i support the legalization of marijuana and i say so in my book and the conclusion but i also want to draw attention to other kinds of drug reform because for me the drug war

itself has had so much class bias written into it that i would hate for drug reform to mimic it and have similar class bias risks written into it so i'm trying to talk about and emphasize other things like decriminalization of narcotics, more treatment enforcement in other ways. we once had an other way of dealing with narcotics. we can do it again. we can go back to a regulatory framework and i hope, i guess that is the real answer to the question. i really do hope that the book just by putting these tools in front of people and seeing how they work and putting them in motion i hope it expands not just people's historical imagination but their political machination for the present day. that looks like it. i want to thank you all again for coming. [applause]

.. you'd tell us to do